Wings.

I didn’t think it would end like this.

I thought I’d go out in a blaze of glory, on my own terms, when I was ready.

I didn’t think my health would force me out of teaching.

In a way, though, bittersweet as it is, I am ready.  I’m ready to move on. I am ready for this new chapter of my life. I don’t know what it will bring, but I truly feel like my time as a teacher has ended.  I can only hope that any good I have done at that school will continue to echo and ripple and flow.

Now I must find new good to do.  It is out there, in the unknown, in the wild, scary beyond. I’m not sure yet where it will come (or where to even look for it, to be honest), but I must believe that it will come.  I must hold on to that hope, even if it scares me.

This—leaving the comfort of the familiar—is as terrifying to me as jumping off a cliff.

I’ve been standing at the edge of this cliff for a while now—probably since my epilepsy diagnosis back in 2012, truth be told—and it has taken all of my faith and courage to even consider this leap.

I am terrified, but I know I must do this.

Something beautiful awaits me beyond this cliff, and I’ll never discover what it is if I just stand at its edge.

Ray Bradbury (may he rest in peace) said it best: “Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off.  Build your wings on the way down.”

What faith that takes, what courage—to leap without wings!

Faith and courage are kind of the same thing, aren’t they?  They both require risk. They require action in spite of fear, in spite of reluctance, in spite of doubt.  They require daring.  They require discomfort.

They require a willingness to walk (er, leap?) blindly into the unknown and trust that a way will present itself where there doesn’t appear to be one.

I must find my faith, my courage, and I must make this leap.  I am terrified of falling, but I know in my heart of hearts that I must do this.

I must leap in faith, in courage, and I must build my wings.

(How else am I supposed to fly?)





The Power of Words.

As soon as I decided I was leaving my job, I started the arduous task of writing letters to each of my fifty-or-so students.  I’m not talking about the same letter printed fifty times with only the names changed—no, not that.  Not saccharine sentiments about “best wishes for the future” or similar generic fluff.  Not that, either.  I didn’t find some Pinterest-perfect template.  I didn’t look to Hallmark for the words.

I’m talking about fifty one-of-a-kind, individually-crafted letters, the kind of letters where I ripped open my heart and bled onto the page for each of them.

It took months to find the time, to find the words.  But I found them.  It wasn’t all that hard—I knew those kids so well, and I had so much to say to them.  So many good things.  So many blessings, so many moments and memories to be thankful for.  So many things I’d noticed, so many things I wanted them to know—truths I hoped they’d cling to forever.

Those words were my gift to those kids.

I gave them those letters today, and their response was at once subtle and overwhelming.  Some were completely silent.  Some laughed, some cried, some shook their heads.  Some wrote their own letters to me in response.  I got a lot of hugs, a chorus of I’ll miss you’s, and their thanks.

But one boy folded his letter into a tiny square and stuck it into the fold of his wallet, and that was the best response I could have hoped for.

Mystery Injuries.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think I may have broken a toe.

I had another seizure last Friday night. My right arm is covered in scrapes and bruises, and my left foot hurts something awful.  I’m not sure why I hurt, but I hurt.

I do all sorts of dumb shit after my seizures, in the moments following the convulsions but before I’m totally conscious.  Mom was there when it happened (thank goodness), and she said that I was lurching/stomping all over the place, trying to rip my pants off (???) and that I was climbing up the banister of our staircase.  (I didn’t try to use the steps, mind you—I was trying to climb up the outside of the banister rails.)  I don’t remember any of this, but Mom did a pretty good reenactment for me when I came to.

So, mystery pain—I’m guessing I either thwacked my foot when I fell to the floor during the seizure, or else I did something to it when I was trying to climb up the banister.  I don’t know.

It sounds stupid—to be unsure of something like that.  But I’m coming to discover that mysterious injuries are just part of this whole epilepsy thing.

I hate that these wounds are always self-inflicted.

Mercy.

Whenever I hear the word mercy, I think of two things: church and death.

That may seem a bit simplistic (and morbid), but it’s true—I think everything I’ve been told about mercy boils down to these two things: God’s mercy for sinners and how death can be a mercy for the suffering.  The word always carried connotations of desperation and vulnerability, so, naturally, since I spent so much time pretending that I was invincible, it wasn’t a word I that I really paid attention to.

That is, until I had to.

I spend most of my workday pretending to be invincible, and I usually make a pretty good show of it.  I am in charge of a bunch of teenagers and it’s my job to make sure they sit down and shut up and learn, so I have to be in control.

And epilepsy is the complete opposite of control.

If I lose it in front of those kids, if I start shaking and twitching and clenching and babbling in front of them, I--

I--

I don’t know.

I don’t even want to think about that.

I’ve done about everything I can do to prepare for that horror.  I’ve told my students about my condition.  (Even though most of them already knew—there are no secrets in a small town.) There are hot pink posters hanging up all over my classroom explaining what to do if I start seizing.  But even still, the idea of having a seizure in front of my students looms, a terrifying and humiliating possibility.

I am in such a vulnerable state when I’m seizing.  It would be so easy for my students to take advantage of my unconscious state—to let me fall over and repeatedly bang my head against the floor, to point and laugh if I wet my pants, to take pictures (or worse—video) of my episode, to walk out of the room and leave me there alone.

But I don’t think they will.

To me, I’ve found that mercy is this: holding the power to do harm and choosing not to do that harm.

I am at the mercy of those kids.

Sickness Sucks.

Sickness sucks.  Really, it does.  It’s awful and unfair and scary and…well, sucky.

But it does make us kinder.

People have been so, so kind to me through this trial.  And I’m not talking about pity, either.  I’m talking about my teenage students who are sensitive to my needs, who are quiet when I need it, who ask about my health and do what they can to help me.  I’m talking about former students of mine (and in some cases, even their parents) who have been driving me home from work (40 miles!) at least once a week.  I’m talking about coworkers who took over my supervision and detention duties for the rest of the year.  I’m talking about a sub who volunteered to cover for me one day a week for the rest of the year to ease my burden of finding rides.  I’m talking about the get well cards (some homemade!) and phone calls and flowers and signs and balloons and cakes and gifts.  I’ve been overwhelmed by generosity and kindness, and a lot of it has come from teenagers.

Sickness sucks.

But it does, strangely enough, unite us.

Since my diagnosis, people have shared their own struggles with sickness with me, and I’ve been brave enough to share mine with others as well. I reached out and shared my own story with an epileptic student at the school where I teach.  I wanted to show her that she wasn’t alone in this.  (She is literally the only other epileptic I’ve ever met—I was feeling pretty alone myself, truth be told.)  It was nice to talk to another person who understood what I was feeling, who understood my frustrations, my fears, my side effects, who couldrelate.  And later that same day, another student came to me during her lunch period and told me about her own struggle with Lyme disease, and we bonded over our aggravations about feeling betrayed by our own bodies, about losing control, about the horrors of treatments, especially ones that don’t work.

Yes, sickness sucks.  Find someone who disagrees—I dare you.

But it reminds us what we can do for each other.  It draws us out of ourselves.  It makes us less selfish.  It makes us better people.  It reminds us how short life is, how precious, how beautiful.  It has been a blessing to be the recipient of such an outpouring of grace, and I can’t wait to pay it forward.

Disabled.

It is a hard thing to grasp: being disabled.

It’s especially hard when my “disability” has really only affected me for TWO HOURS AND SEVEN MINUTES of my entire existence. (If my math is correct, that’s only 0.00075% of my life.) The rest of the time, I’ve been pretty much fine.

But I carry that label. I am disabled. I am protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Which, I should add, I am grateful for—I’ve needed its protections.) I even went on disability leave for a few months last school year, due to complications from a concussion and neck injury I suffered while seizing and the fact that I legally could not drive for three months following the incident, as per state law.

In spite of these things, though, I’ve never really thought of my disability as all thatdisabling. It has made some things harder, true, but the only thing it’s really kept me from doing is…well, driving.

I abided by the law after every seizure: no driving for three months. Even though I felt fine, even though I (mistakenly) thought that law was completely ridiculous, I didn’t drive. I used to count down the days/hours/minutes/seconds until I could drive again, until I could enjoy the sweet, sweet freedom of going wherever I want, whenever I want.

I’m not counting down the seconds to that freedom this time. Not minutes, not hours. Not even the days. That three-month restriction no longer seems so ridiculous. I get it now.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure I ever want to drive again.

Epilepsy is such an unpredictable disease—it can strike whenever. Even while driving. (Which, by the way, was the scariest effing thing that has ever happened to me…) Sure, I was fated to live/rescued by angels/given a miracle/just plain lucky, but next time…well, I don’t ever want there to be a next time. I don’t want to think about how things might have ended differently, how I might have been hurt or killed, or worse—how I might have hurt or killed someone else, without even knowing it until I shook out of my post-epileptic fog and realized the horrors I had caused.

So now I’m at a crossroads. (Hmmm. No pun intended, but it is a rather fitting metaphor.)

To drive or not to drive—that is the question: whether ‘tis nobler to take the risk and drive myself, or to play it safe and rely on others for all eternity. (Sorry, that was a bit dramatic—my apologies to Shakespeare.) Sure, I could get back in my Honda after these three months pass, but now that I know what could happen, my epilepsy feels like an alcohol buzz: I know I probably shouldn’t get in that car.  I know the risk.

Basically, I’m either an accident waiting to happen or a burden on others. I don’t like either one of those options.

To me, this is what has been truly disabling.

I live in the middle of nowhere and I love it—it is gorgeous and quiet and free. But part of what I love about it is that it’s an escapefrom my hectic life. If I am confined to this house, if I choose to never drive again, I fear it will become more prison than escape.

Then again, writing is literally the only career I’ve ever truly wanted. And writing is a lonely job. It requires isolation.  I entertained the possibility of other professions, but they were merely fads: surgeon, punk band manager, lawyer, opera singer—heck, eventeacher, to be perfectly frank, even though I’m teaching now and I love it most days. But ever since I learned what a book was, I longed to write one.  That desire has never left me.

Maybe this potential isolation is a gift. Maybe it’s a chance for me to invest in my passions without distractions. Maybe it’s a chance for me to learn patience. (I’ll admit, that’s a lesson I could use….)  Maybe it’s a chance for me to get to know those who are kind enough to cart me around and to cultivate those friendships. Maybe it’s a chance to turn my loneliness into my dream.

Two roads diverge in this wood, and I—I’m not sure which I’ll travel by.

This choice could make all the difference.

(Apologies, Robert Frost.)

On Sickness and Rainbows.

I think, when you’re standing in front of the preacher reciting your wedding vows, the words “for better or worse, in sickness and in health” come out so easily that you don’t fully understand the magnitude of your promise.  Even if you mean them with your whole heart (and I did), they are just words on that day, because they have yet to be tested, because you can imagine nothing but perpetual sunshine and lollipops and rainbows in your marital future as you stare into your lover’s eyes.

There will be rainbows, true.  Lots of rainbows.

But not without storms.

(That’s how rainbows work, see?)

I mean, when my husband proposed, I had a pretty good idea that married life was gonna be great.  (And it totally has—he’s amazing.)  But on that day nearly nine years ago when we made those vows, I pictured the rainbows.  I could not fathom the storms.

In sickness and in health.

Those words are pretty easy to say when you’re both healthy.

My “sickness” has proven to be one of those storms.  I hate being “in sickness,” especially when I feel like I’m “in health” 93% of the time.  I hate it, hate it, hate it.  I hate the “worse” parts of this whole epilepsy mess.  It has been stressful and scary and uncertain and awful in so, so many ways.  But it has done more to prove the strength of our vows than any rainbow ever could.

I’ve always said that I’m married to the nicest man in America.  My husband has always been a caretaker: he helps little old ladies with their luggage at the airport.  (I am not even making this up.)  He blows out my grandma’s driveway when it snows.  He recycles.  He holds doors for people.   He volunteers.  It was his idea for us to get licensed as foster parents.  He’s always been good to others.  He always cares for those in need.  It’s one of the things I most love about him.

I admire my husband’s caretaker ways, but, ironically enough, I have always idealized the virtue of self-sufficiency in my own life.  I am independent to a fault—always have been—and I hate having to need anyone, even him.  I just want to do everything by myself.  My husband has always respected my independence, and I love him for it.

But I am finding out that maybe my independence wasn’t the virtue I once thought it was.

See, that thing within myself that I had always tried to repress because I found it so repulsive—my fragility, my need—awakened something beautiful within me: fragility and need.

I’m learning to be fragile; I’m learning to need.  I’m learning to let him care for me, and it’s taking my breath away.

In the wake of my sickness, he’s been tender and gentle and attentive and supportive.  He watches over me with the quiet vigilance and loyalty of a German shepherd.  He drives me all over kingdom come without so much as a sigh of annoyance.  He holds me when I’m frustrated and he listens when I rant.  He’s been a perfect gentleman, and a perfect Eagle Scout, too.  True to Boy Scout Law, he is “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”  (Well, maybe not always all that clean, but he’s a farmer, so I think he gets a free pass on that one.)

But this is what those wedding vows are all about.  This is what it means to take someone for better or worse, in sickness and in health.  It’s what he has done for me: recognizing that fragility and need and meeting it with goodness and care.  And, as I am learning, too, it’s about letting that goodness and care happen.  It’s about receiving it, appreciating it, and returning it.

These storms have given my husband the chance to shelter me, to live out the vows that he made to me, and they have left me in breathless awe of his love for me.  I don’t think I fully appreciated the magnitude of his goodness until he turned its rays on me.

And that’s a pretty darn good rainbow.